11 ms·

Changes we're making to Google Assistant

226 points by kkkkkkk 3y ago

micromacrofoot 3y ago
> Calls made from speakers and Smart Displays will not show up with a caller ID unless you’re using Duo. who the hell is using Duo
- nikanj 3y ago
  Nobody, that’s why they’re using this opportunity to force people to it
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- smileysteve 3y ago
  Wait, I thought Duo was now Gmail meet? Even Google product teams can't keep track of Google product changes. This one happened a year ago!?
hulitu 3y ago
> Changes we're making to Google Assistant As always: "Bug fixes and performance improvements". /s
- jmholla 3y ago
  In this case it's not. It seems to be the removal of a bunch of useful features.
binkHN 3y ago
The enshittification of everything. These are not just "changes," this is them removing functionality and replacing it with nothing.
deleted 3y ago
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deleted 3y ago
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napoleoncomplex 3y ago
A lot of the changes just don't make any sense? Some of the features removed: - Using your voice to send an email, video or audio message. You can still make calls and send text messages - Rescheduling an event in Google Calendar with your voice. You can still schedule a new event. - Asking to take certain actions by voice, such as send a payment, make a reservation, or post to social media. You can still ask Assistant to open your installed apps. - Asking to meditate with Calm. You can still ask for meditation options with media providers such as YouTube. All of these seem to fall under the umbrella of "features that actually make the assistant an assistant"/connecting the assistant to other apps, which I imagine is exactly the opposite of where the Assistant trend is going, especially with LLMs. Just speaking to a device about which action you want to take and not needing to think which app you need to open and navigate feels like the UX of the future, whatever this is seems like the opposite.
- jpcfl 3y ago
  My guess is that a lot of these features are hard-coded, and they are deprecating them in order to replace them with a more generic LLM-based assistant.
  - talleyrand 3y ago
    I really hope that this is the case.
  - aquova 3y ago
    And despite how bullish everyone seems to be on LLMs, I suspect we'll see those very same LLM features get ripped out within 5 years or so.
  - tlogan 3y ago
    Perhaps, but it seems like a strange approach. I would assume they would retain these features and then gradually replace each one with an LLM-based approach.
  - alejo 3y ago
    If this was the case, wouldn’t had been better to axe these features once they were ready to roll out the new LLM-based functionality?
photon_collider 3y ago
Here’s the list of changes: https://support.google.com/assistant/answer/13971691 https://support.google.com/assistant/answer/13971691
Metacelsus 3y ago
Whenever there's a vague press release about "changes we're making", it's bound to be changes for the worse.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
  They should call it the "Enshittification Log"
  - brnt 3y ago
    And have Patrick Stewart read out loud.
- kevstev 3y ago
  True. Ten or more like 15 years ago I would have been excited about this title from Google. Now I am just like "oh great what am I losing now?!" Its a shame, its been a LONG time since Google surprised and delighted me like they did many times during the 00s.
- wvenable 3y ago
  I laughed when I saw the headline, saw it was Google, and then the article is just a list of everything they are removing. It's almost parody.
smileysteve 3y ago
Defaulting to search or YouTube feels like a money / metrics grab. No longer displaying commute time to work, but you can check it on maps? So, they're removing the assistant part into a search box.
- nostrademons 3y ago
  I suspect it's org politics - but yes, in search of money and metrics. Assistant alienated a lot of other departments from 2016-2020 with their rapid rise and rapid growth in headcount (and ability to push integrations through whether they were a good idea or not). Then they failed to make significant money, right into an economic environment where making money was prioritized much more highly than speculative researchey new markets. These changes are them trying to make themselves indispensable to other PA's metrics, so that when budgets are set, they can argue "You can't cut Assistant, look at the drop in searches & YouTube views that would result in." Same reason why they were hit harder in the layoffs than other more profitable products.
trey-jones 3y ago
Sometimes I use voice for search. My primary use-case is creating reminders. For this I use (of course), the microphone in the search bar. I guess I'll have to find the next best way. Maybe it will end up being better.
- twisteriffic 3y ago
  Unless things have changed recently, you can't even do that if you use a workspace account. No explanation of why, it just silently fails. I'm down to three gestures with assistant: - play white noise. 50% success rate. Half the time it plays white stripes or some random death metal, which is great when my kids are trying to sleep. - "ok google, stop". This works reasonably reliably. - "I wasn't talking to you". For the 3-6 times per day when it activates for seemingly no reason and where no activation logs are ever created. If I can find a decent internet-attached photo frame to replace it I'm out.
TrueDuality 3y ago
I was really hoping something had forced Google to allow the full disabling of the assistant. I really don't find it useful and accidentally trigger it more often than I care to admit. Make it truly useful or get out of my way.
bboygravity 3y ago
I know what would be a killer feature: the ability to turn it completely off and delete it and never have to see it ever again.
- firtoz 3y ago
  Anything else that allows me to set alarms and timers without having to touch my phone?
  - avsteele 3y ago
    "ok google" : "Set timer for x minutes" works for alarm, etc...
  - nix0n 3y ago
    I've been using a 1980s-style digital watch for this. It's good enough for cooking, which is the only time I care about not touching my phone.
  - HarHarVeryFunny 3y ago
    "Hey Siri, set 10 minute timer". But I suppose you meant for Android ?
    - firtoz 3y ago
      Android indeed, or anything that's not Apple nor Amazon nor some other "all your data are belong to us". I know there are some cool DIY hacker projects out there, maybe I should really get my hands dirty tbh? In that case, does anyone know any good links to things they tried recently? Especially with Whisper.cpp and so on it may not be TOO hard on a Raspberry Pi... right?
      - draugadrotten 3y ago
        Try Home Assistant and an esp32 with a mic array. https://www.home-assistant.io/voice_control/ https://www.home-assistant.io/voice_control/
eterm 3y ago
Wow that's a big list of surprisingly useful features being ripped out. I'd already noticed my new phone (pixel 8, I fucking hate it) had trouble setting a simple timer with a voice command ( last time I tried it gave me a shitty youtube video result of a 10 minute timer!?!), but this list of removed features goes further, removing other basic functionality from voice assistance. If all a voice assistant can do is google my "command" and read me the results, that's a terrible experience. The whole selling point (to me) is the ability to do something magic with what I'm asking.
- singularity2001 3y ago
  Google has to cater to its reputation of biggest destructor of products
- Bartkusa 3y ago
  > Managing a stopwatch on Smart Displays and Speakers. You can still set timers and alarms. How much does this cost to maintain? A stopwatch? They’re axing a STOPWATCH?! This is embarrassing.
  - JoshTriplett 3y ago
    Taking a guess, based on experiences with using Google Assistant extensively: What do you do if you have statistics saying that, say, a feature is used by a small fraction of users, and 40% of the activations of the feature were in fact not what the user wants, and instead were misunderstandings of requests for something else? Ambiguity is a massive problem.
    - ketralnis 3y ago
      Be better and misunderstand less often?
      - JoshTriplett 3y ago
        Human syntax sometimes has inherent ambiguities.
peeters 3y ago
Another step in Android's steady progression of become less and less useful hands-free. It's incredible to me that my experience with my Nexus One in 2010 was better than it is today with a Pixel 7. The fact that it arbitrarily decides to not recognize some contacts on some days. The fact that it can't handle me spelling out a street name when it insists on replacing the street name that I'm saying with something completely different. The fact that YouTube Music would always play "some driving music" that it chooses over my playlist literally called "Driving Music", when I would say "Play my Driving Music Playlist on YouTube Music". And now the assistant is getting even less personalized, which means it will care even less about what you're literally saying, and just send you into a swamp of generic assumptions. Assistants were SO much more usable when they would require strict trigger language, and interpret it literally and formulaically. Yes you would have to learn its language, but once you did, you could actually accomplish what you wanted to accomplish, unlike today.
- avtolik 3y ago
  Yep. It is a pretty useless device if you cannot hold it in your hand and unlock it. So for example, when I ride my bike I can pause the music or receive a call and not much else.
  - peeters 3y ago
    I wonder how many road deaths their declining hands-free quality has contributed to? I'd wager the number has more than two digits. It's one thing to never have supported something hands-free, but when something that you used to be able to regularly do hands-free all of a sudden doesn't work, drivers are bound to get frustrated and use the device hand-held.
- Workaccount2 3y ago
  Google needs to toss Sundar and get a competent CEO who can forcefully smash the org back into line. Google has turned into these little micro clusters of ideologies and functional philosophies, leading to a horrifically fragmented mess of google branded products. All which come loaded now with end-of-life anxiety as google just farts out products that seem to dissipate just as fast. The fact that most google apps function better on iOS than Pixel phones should be enough to get any sane board to take action. This is without even mentioning the disaster that search has become, or completely dropping the ball on LLMs.
pragmaticpro 3y ago
> Asking to take certain actions by voice, such as send a payment, make a reservation, or post to social media. You can still ask Assistant to open your installed apps. This seems to imply that apps which feature 'app actions' would no longer work properly and will need to be opened via assistant separately... Sounds like a major regression for those scenarios with needing to issue a separate command to open an app.
jacooper 3y ago
TBH all Classic voixe assistants are terrible, they should be replaced with any of the mainstream LLM models we have.
- HarHarVeryFunny 3y ago
  To me the problem isn't lack of language understanding - it's more lack of integration with useful actions, although LLM support would certainly help with feature discovery and flexible invocation of actions. Presumably Google Assistant is on it's way to being replaced by ChatGPT with plugins, although these would need access to phone APIs to do local stuff.
  - jacooper 3y ago
    True, but the assistant needs to be actually good to do such things, it isn't good enough now.
petee 3y ago
It says you can only add new events now and not reschedule...does that mean when Assistant gets the info wrong for the event I'll have to go in and manually change it? It screws up constantly, so it sounds like a headache
asdajksah2123 3y ago
I'm quite torn on this (to be fair, I rarely use voice commands at all...I've found it's usually more effort to fix things when it gets it wrong than the cumulative sum of all the times it may save me any time whatsoever). 1. I can see how this is absolutely frustrating for someone who uses one of these commands regularly. 2. At the same time, one of the issues with voice commands relative to say keyboard input is the lack of delineation. If I hit Ctrl + Enter on my keyboard, there's no way for the computer to interpret that any differently. However, that's not the case with voice commands. It needs to keep determining (a) what I said, (b) whether it's a command or just voice, (c) whether it's a command it's supposed to execute and that's before it even figures out waht to execute. But the problem is that as the number of voice commands increases, the number of false "this is a command and not just voice" triggers will increase. There's probably a genuine benefit for Google's users in the universe of commands being very small as long as the command that's removed is not one they use. I've noticed several of the options are "you can use a custom routine to do this instead". Maybe Google should have included the custom routine and made it togglable.
w0m 3y ago
and this sucks.
afavour 3y ago
To me this highlights the core failure with all these voice-driven UIs: you have absolutely no idea what is possible and what isn't. Discoverability is zero, which makes big changes like this even more disruptive. I've already decided that I'm done with Google's smart assistant stuff in any case. I have a Google Home with a screen in my kitchen and the most-used feature (aside from just existing as a photo frame) was an integration with a really useful shopping list app called AnyList. It certainly wasn't complex, we'd say "Hey Google, add <x> to the shopping list" and it would do it. But it was very useful: I'd have something in my hands I just pulled from the fridge (e.g. milk) and be able to add it to the list without interrupting what I'm doing. If it had to wait until I was done for me to pull out my phone I'd inevitably forget. Then one day Google decided to disable that integration. Now the only shopping list you can add to is one Google provides (which naturally has way fewer features than AnyList). They've never provided even the remotest defense for why they've removed it, it's very obviously to lock us into the Google ecosystem. So our Google Home is now a glorified photo frame that plays music from time to time (and even then prioritizes cover versions and YouTube videos over actual songs, presumably because $$$)
- esafak 3y ago
  It's not just voice, but conversational interfaces in general that have this discoverability problem. That means chatGPT. I'm glad people are discovering it, if you excuse the pun. CUIs are not a panacea, not a replacement for conventional UIs.
  - gr__or 3y ago
    I think there's a line worth drawing here: Pre-LLM voice interfaces required you to guess the command(s) the designer of the thinking were having in mind for the action you want to perform. With LLMs you can be 10ft into human-level vaguery and metaphorism and your intent might still survive. So the difference wrt discovery is that you only have to gesture at what you wanna do and, if a matching action exists, there is a chance it will be understood. I'd wager we'll see a renaissance of voice assistants with LLMs, especially once the good-enough ones can run on device.
thrillgore 3y ago
Typical Google
htrp 3y ago
List of items being removed... instead of being nested under the announcement * Playing and controlling audiobooks on Google Play Books with your voice. You can still cast audiobooks from your mobile device. * Setting or using media alarms, music alarms, or radio alarms on Google Assistant enabled devices. You can create a custom Routine that has similar behavior or use a standard alarm. * Accessing or managing your cookbook, transfering recipes from device to device, playing an instructional recipe video, or showing step-by-step recipes. You can use Google Assistant to search for recipes across the web and YouTube. * Managing a stopwatch on Smart Displays and Speakers. You can still set timers and alarms. * Using your voice to call a device or broadcast a message to your Google Family Group. You can still broadcast to devices in your home. * Using your voice to send an email, video or audio message. You can still make calls and send text messages. * Rescheduling an event in Google Calendar with your voice. You can still schedule a new event. * Using App Launcher in Google Assistant driving mode on Google Maps to read and send messages, make calls, and control media. You can still use voice control on Google Maps the same way. * Asking to schedule or hear previously scheduled Family Bell announcements. You can create a custom Routine that has similar behavior. * Asking to meditate with Calm. You can still ask for meditation options with media providers such as YouTube. * Voice control for activities will no longer be available on Fitbit Sense and Versa 3 devices. You'll need to use the buttons on your device to start, stop, pause, and resume activities. You can still voice control activities on Pixel Watches. * Viewing your sleep summaries will only be available on Google Smart Displays. You can still ask for sleep details by voice on third-party smart clocks. * Calls made from speakers and Smart Displays will not show up with a caller ID unless you’re using Duo. * Viewing the ambient “Commute to Work” time estimates on Smart Displays. You can still ask for commute times and get directions by voice. * Checking personal travel itineraries by voice. You can still ask for flight status. * Asking for information about your contacts. You can still make calls to your contacts. * Asking to take certain actions by voice, such as send a payment, make a reservation, or post to social media. You can still ask Assistant to open your installed apps.
nickcw 3y ago
I read the title of this and thought - yes - at last - Google are going to be integrating LLM capabilities with Google Assistant to make it really really useful instead of occasionally useful with a side helping of frustration at how little it understands. Instead this seems to be a list of useful features that are being taken away! I'm disappointed. Google employ some of the best AI/ML engineers in the world and they are making assistant worse rather than making it a showcase for what LLMs can do.
- crimsoneer 3y ago
  Agreed, this is so mystifying. Google Assistant is such an obvious use case.
- ygjb 3y ago
  The problem is that the current crop of google assistant devices (excluding current and upcoming gen cell phones) are woefully underpowered for local models, meaning that supporting the existing install base will be expensive. I expect that a new assistant like product (Google Bard Home or something) will be announced and existing Assistant/Home devices will be deprecated.
- operatingthetan 3y ago
  https://blog.google/products/assistant/google-assistant-bard-generative-ai/ https://blog.google/products/assistant/google-assistant-bard... Was announced in October, but haven't seen anything about it since.
kotaKat 3y ago
Sounds like Google's making a bunch of anti-competitive moves by stripping out loads of third party support from Assistant. Makes you think.
yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
So perhaps it's a good day to call for contributors to add more actions to https://github.com/Stypox/dicio-android https://github.com/Stypox/dicio-android ? If Google wants to remove features, they can be replaced by something that doesn't have that problem.
deleted 3y ago
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ryandvm 3y ago
Glad they're making changes because it couldn't possibly be worse. It is one of the few products I use daily that gets noticeably worse over time. Shopping lists, calendars, reminders, timers, etc use to work pretty well, but now they're absolute trash. There's a running joke in our house that one of us will ask the Google Home speaker something, it responds with either "I don't know", "I can't do that", or some bizarre non-sequitur and then we say, "just ask ChatGPT".
- esafak 3y ago
  On a good day, when it asks me for feedback I tell it to fire the person in charge. On less charitable days I throw in the rest of the team.
  - password4321 3y ago
    From what I read it sounds like your plan is working!
kleiba 3y ago
I went into AI almost 30 years ago because I wanted to be part of building a science-fiction future where you could talk to your device just like in the movies. Now that we're almost there, I wouldn't touch a cloud-based speech interface with a ten foot pole -- had I foreseen that my sci-fi future included giving all my private information (like, say, what my voice sounds like) to a face-less billion dollar global corporation, I would have saved my time.
- Terr_ 3y ago
  I want to see a personal AI revolution to echo the Personal Computer revolution. Tools that people own-- capital, almost--that work for individual own best-interests.
  - toyg 3y ago
    It's never going to happen. The Personal Computer revolution was made possible by economies of scale in industrial manufacturing of relatively simple components. Companies made money by selling widgets to as many people as possible. By definition, AI is only made possible by advances in massive computation capacity, which is easier to achieve and improve with centralized models. This is always going to be the realm of Big Money. In a way, AI epitomizes the shift from XX-century economics, based on manufacturing, to a XXI-century version based on extracting rent from networked digital subjects.
    - Terr_ 3y ago
      > By definition, AI is only made possible by advances in massive computation capacity By what? In the words of Inigo Montoya: "The way you use that word... I do not think it means what you think it means." Sure, we're kinda-brute-forcing things now, but that's no physical law (nor dictionary definition) declaring that digital assistants will be just captive pen-pal lamp-genies of Big Companies inside their Big Computer Rooms forever. Perhaps someday you'll be able to grab an off-the-shelf AI core, "flash" its mutable-circuits/firmware/weights with a starting state, and pop it into an appropriate chassis for the task.
leviathant 3y ago
I think because I have Google Fi, I kept getting Google Home products. We've got a couple of the little speakers, and a couple of the little Nest hubs. I bought a pair of Nest Home Max speakers when they were blowing them out, because people said they sounded good - they do! All this is to say I'm fairly late to the voice assistant party. At some point my wife and I decided to give it a good try. Read up on best practices. Figured it'd been something that had been in market a good long time, maybe by now the kinks were worked out. The search results were hit or miss. It was not clear where tasks were being saved to. So for the last few years, here are the voice commands we've used: ok google, what's the weather today ok google, play white noise ok google, stop ...and every now and then, we ask it to search for info on a topic and it fails comically. I'm not surprised to see a big shift here. Oooh. On my Pixel, I do use "OK Google, Turn off the flashlight" - that IS helpful.
- twisteriffic 3y ago
  What's your success rate on white noise? I'm down in the 50s with no earthly idea of why. I get white stripes and random death metal with great regularity.
nemothekid 3y ago
You'd think with all the noise about how awful Siri is you would see Google crushing voice integrations as a top 3 advantage. Now I'm left wondering if the reason Apple has abandoned Siri and Homepod is because they are fundamentally flawed products.
wavemode 3y ago
Assistant has lived just a little too long. Google's hands are starting to enclose around its neck.
- kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
  Google Concierge is waiting for it's day in the sun.
shooker435 3y ago
This is what makes me skeptical of ever buying a Volvo or other car with Google Assistant built in.
ChilledTonic 3y ago
I was watching a friend use Siri the other day (I've never used an iPhone) and I was blown away by how much it could accomplish in comparison to Google Assistant. He said he used Siri as the default way of interfacing with his phone, which I found interesting. Reading this list of removals, especially the removal of CALLER ID, on video calls no less, an insane choice - how much could that possibily cost to maintain? - I'm honestly wondering if they're actively trying to drive people into Apple's ecosystem. Nevertheless I'll never buy a Google product as long as I live. How can I trust them not to completely mothball every useful feature I bought it for?
- dvngnt_ 3y ago
  that's strange. I remember watching mkbhd assistant comparison and I thought google had the more capable one
  - reportingsjr 3y ago
    Yeah, it's no competition. Siri is terrible in comparison to google assistant. Not sure what OP is on about.
    - pound 3y ago
      Of all 3, I'd say Alexa is the most practical for using at home, google one is kinda the smartest one but also is the most frustrating one - what worked yesterday will not work today or will work occasionally (exact same prompt's wording). Siri will not always respond but overall works fine within its somewhat limited scope, as compared to others (like number of integrations supported), but then again - ecosystem.. My biggest issue with Siri is intercom: at home we mostly speak other language than english, and when using intercom Siri often tries to parse what's being recorded, instead of just recording audio sample and send it verbatim. Something like: Me - Hey Siri, Intercom Siri - intercom chime (not 'Aha?' of responding to just Hey Siri) Me - *bjlkabdgkjhqwruo;fghnasd.mkfnlkjashfjkasdngjkasbdg* (doesn't matter, different language) Siri (thinking she recognized some word) - Here are the results for what you asked..
  - 3y ago
tlogan 3y ago
I believe Google is heading in the wrong direction with their current approach. In my opinion, integrating LLMs and add function calling would be a significant improvement. This integration would enable the assistant to perform more complex and integrated tasks, and facilitate more meaningful conversations. Especially in scenarios where the user’s request isn’t clear or it’s uncertain which application to invoke and how, this advanced interaction capability could be incredibly beneficial.
- notatoad 3y ago
  > In my opinion, integrating LLMs and add function calling would be a significant improvement i'm sure this is where they're headed. but what announcement reads as to me is some clever PM at google realized they don't want to announce a new LLM update to the assistant and have to include all the functionality it loses in that same announcment. so they're taking the functionality away now, and in six months they can announce a new assistant that has feature parity with the "old one"
varelse 3y ago
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bilalq 3y ago
For all the hype "AI" gets these days, it's amazing how much things have regressed. My Android phone used to remember where I parked and show it on my Google Now feed and a push notification as I headed out, all without ever asking it to do anything. The travel.google.com site used to show my itineraries without ever adding them there. Hotels, flights, car rentals, and more would be aggregated. Doesn't do that anymore. You used to just be able to search for "my flights" on Google and it'd tell you about you about your upcoming flights.
- leros 3y ago
  The old Google Now feed was amazing. Showed me where my car is parked. Told me when to leave to arrive places in time. Pulled up my flight details automatically. Now it's just a bunch of click bait articles.
  - verelo 3y ago
    It’s almost like google intentionally kills good projects. I still miss Inbox more than anything. The snooze feature on an email was so amazing.
    - fragmede 3y ago
      I miss Inbox too, but Gmail now has snooze functionality built in.
      - throw_nbvc1234 3y ago
        I had to stop using gmail/snooze on my ipad because the snoozes wouldn't be synced with my phone. Seems like such a poor implementation vs inbox.
        verelo 3y ago
        yeah thats the struggle i had too. Found I'd snooze on my phone but then they're in my desktop.
iteratethis 3y ago
"We're doing cost cuts and layoffs and here's why this is great for you".
- beembeem 3y ago
  Yep. So much double-speak and lying through the teeth here. The audacity to mention "we're investing in assistant" in an announcement about how they are decidedly de-investing is rich.
resolutebat 3y ago
I've had a Google Home for close to ten years and I don't think I've ever used a single one of these features. Then again, 99% of my Assistant use is kitchen timers and Spotify, and I systematically disable it on my phones. My kids are still salty about Song Quiz going away last year though.
summerlight 3y ago
https://www.semafor.com/article/01/10/2024/google-lays-off-hundreds-working-on-its-voice-activated-assistant https://www.semafor.com/article/01/10/2024/google-lays-off-h... Note that there has been a significant layoff days ago in the assistant team to "improve Google Assistant as it explores integrating newer artificial intelligence technology into its products". Probably they're trying to replace the backend for the assistant with some LMM-based models and see those functionalities are the blockers? Of course, this could be (and should be IMO) done in more gradual migrations rather than this sudden deprecation, but who knows what those execs have in their mind.
- 0xcafefood 3y ago
  > who knows what those execs have in their mind. If I understand Google culture correctly, "promo" is the answer.
_dain_ 3y ago
Reading this thread is kinda bizarre to me. Do people actually ... talk to their phones? Like for real, not just in cringeworthy scripted adverts? I've never used any of these voice assistant things and nor does anyone I know. It always seemed like a huge gimmick to me. Am I just in a bubble?
- post_break 3y ago
  You are in a bubble. And these changes also apply to Google Home devices which are in millions of homes.
- croisillon 3y ago
  s.o. and i both own iphones but never talk to siri. recently we spent a week at an airbnb with an alexa thing so we used it for music and couple more stuff, it was sometimes good, other times so bad it was funny anyway, we came back home and still don't use siri
- jurassicfoxy 3y ago
  I definitely exist in a bubble, but it's especially useful while driving. Or for searches "Hey Siri, what is the capital of Zambia?" is faster than typing it, and you don't even need to reach for your phone. (Of course Siri is awful and can barely do basic things.) We use it quite a lot.
- Noumenon72 3y ago
  It's just faster to say "OK Google, navigate to work" than pulling out a keyboard and opening apps. Even though for some reason I still can't time when Google is going to start listening after all these years, and have to repeat myself a lot. I think it was fine-tuned for American voices at first and got worse when expanded worldwide.
  - _dain_ 3y ago
    why don't you know the way to work?
    - deleted 3y ago
NoboruWataya 3y ago
Amazing that this post about how they are intent on delivering the "best possible user experience" just announces a ton of features they're dropping and literally not one feature they are adding. Not that it matters to me because having bought an Amazon Echo a few years back I find these things mostly useless. It basically just does the most basic things a phone does (music, weather, news headlines), but with added friction when it misinterprets you. They are a clear example of something we rush to buy because they are "the future" before realising that the future is just the present but more tedious and with more ads.
- drdaeman 3y ago
  That's modern large corporate PR for you - they can stop any kind of service and remove any features and the PR department will release that happy post parading it as a giant leap forward. What's bad is that people are so used to it nobody barely rises an eyebrow.
nineteen999 3y ago
How about you remove the popup prompt to turn on Google Assistant EVERY TIME I connect my Bluetooth earphones? It's turned off for a reason.
aristus 3y ago
Something that's kinda funny but baffling to me is the unspoken assumption that a UI with voice input should also default to voice output. That's not how two humans work on command / response tasks, say, hanging pictures. You say, "a finger to the left and up" and I move the picture. Silent UI feedback is a curiously unplumbed idea. Or another one: if you sit at a restaurant and ask the menu, would you rather they tediously recite it? Or hand you a paper menu while maybe giving a couple tips like "the fish pasta is awesome today"?
- jdthedisciple 3y ago
  How do you get feedback then? Supposedly, when you are voice commanding, you do so because you are unable to look at the device and visually confirm that the correct action is being undertaken.
Yhippa 3y ago
> Viewing the ambient “Commute to Work” time estimates on Smart Displays. You can still ask for commute times and get directions by voice. They're going to take this little piece of convenience for me that I always use. Sad :-(
stronglikedan 3y ago
Wow, Bixby will finally be more useful than GA! Good job, Google! Bye!
no_streams 3y ago
Have any open-source voice assistants reached a half-usable state?
vzaliva 3y ago
"Using your voice to send an email" - how's that not useful?! E.g. running late for a meeting and send a quick email from your car.
BeetleB 3y ago
I bought Google Home/speakers in 2018 and still use them. Since I bought them, there have been almost 0 improvements that I've seen. A lot of potential gone to waste. That they're sunsetting features is not a surprise. I don't know if Alexa is better, but I always tell my friends to buy those instead of Google Homes.
- dmonitor 3y ago
  it’s at least a decent wifi speaker for casting spotify or whatever
  - BeetleB 3y ago
    That it has some good qualities is why I still haven't put them in the trash. My point is they've let it rot all these years. And the potential for cool applications is huge.
gerash 3y ago
When Amazon echo came out, all the flaws of voice assistant were visible and it looked like a glorified kitchen timer but it's surprising how little they improved over the years. Nonetheless Google executives rushed to copy Alexa. At the same time the same executives did not incorporate LLMs into the Assistant when Google invented the tech. These layoffs should've fired all those dead-weight executives and the CEO for good measure yet we see the rank and file losing their job
- jinushaun 3y ago
  That’s why I find the big tech pivot to AI so frustrating. There’s more to AI than LLM and Google and others had all the time in the world to make that. It took someone like OpenAI to show them the error of their ways. Reminds me of legacy mobile phone makers when the iPhone launched.
calamari4065 3y ago
Modern Google is so boringly, predictably shitty.
cheriot 3y ago
The algorithm hype cycle keeps on turning. Voice assistants, self driving cars, and now LLMs. Each one represents an advancement, but nothing to justify the hopes and dreams people expect them to solve any minute now. Every major company has been working on an AI assistant for the past year. Have any of them launched something useful?
dcchambers 3y ago
Actually bummed about this...I use Google assistant triggered via the Google search bar mic button on my phone all the time to manage smart home things.
kurts_mustache 3y ago
It's frustrating to see these updates that feel like a step back rather than an improvement. Why remove useful features and irritate your users? Guess this lets Google lay off more workers who were working on these.
Amigo5862 3y ago
Not that I use voice assistants very regularly, but I decided they've become completely useless after Christmas when I was driving back home and had this (almost-verbatim) exchange with my Android around 11am: Hey Google, remind me when I'm home to ... "I can't remind you at a place" - pretty sure it used to be able to??? Hey Google, remind me tomorrow to ... "Ok, what time do you want me to remind you tomorrow?" Noon "Ok, I'll remind you at noon today" ???????????????????????????
wly_cdgr 3y ago
Let me guess, you're making it even more crap than it already is It's like when you get the "we're updating our privacy policy" email
steelframe 3y ago
I once interviewed someone working in the Google Assistant org. His job was to build technology that would detect "unusual sounds" that the microphone picks up while awaiting a "Hey Google" prompt. I went home from that interview and threw my Google Home device in the trash.
- geor9e 3y ago
  Alexa does that too. It's the same offline wake sound model that processes Alexa and Hey Google. There's a list you can assign to do stuff (send you a notification or turn on a light or whatever) dog barking, baby crying, snoring, glass shattering, smoke alarm beeping, co2 alarm beeping, appliance beeping, running water
- Rebelgecko 3y ago
  Are you talking about the (opt in) accessibility feature where you can get visual notifications when your doorbell rings and things like that?
  - steelframe 3y ago
    Based on what I learned in that interview, there are more classifications of sounds that the product detects. Only a subset of those classifications are surfaced to the customer as part of the product.
londons_explore 3y ago
Why are all these assistants a bunch of rigid regexes and canned responses rather than just a frontend to a language model that can do/say anything? It feels like 2010's tech that couldn't keep up.
Kwpolska 3y ago
Some of those removed features are quite bizarre. > Managing a stopwatch on Smart Displays and Speakers. You can still set timers and alarms. You already have a clock app, probably based on the standard Android one, and how many commands are for stopwatches? > Using your voice to send an email, video or audio message. You can still make calls and send text messages. What’s the big difference between sending a text message to a phone number via the messaging app, and sending an email via the Gmail app? It’s probably a single API call with a few parameters. > Rescheduling an event in Google Calendar with your voice. You can still schedule a new event. > Calls made from speakers and Smart Displays will not show up with a caller ID unless you’re using Duo.
albert_e 3y ago
And here I was a few months ago, looking at the rise of Large Language Models and ... expecting a resurgence of all these natural language assistants. I was expecting to see the effectiveness of these assistants go through a step change for the better, and use cases exploding. Expected the established players like Google and Amazon being able to finally justify building so many of them and selling them cheap with and uncertain pay-off all these years. Alas!
jasonvorhe 3y ago
I completely disabled Google Assistant on my Pixel 7 and I've ripped out all Google Home hardware and I haven't missed any of it for a minute.
rabbits_2002 3y ago
Google is a horrible company

226 points by kkkkkkk 3y ago

> Calls made from speakers and Smart Displays will not show up with a caller ID unless you’re using Duo. who the hell is using Duo

nikanj 3y ago
Nobody, that’s why they’re using this opportunity to force people to it
deleted 3y ago
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smileysteve 3y ago
Wait, I thought Duo was now Gmail meet? Even Google product teams can't keep track of Google product changes. This one happened a year ago!?

hulitu 3y ago

> Changes we're making to Google Assistant As always: "Bug fixes and performance improvements". /s

jmholla 3y ago
In this case it's not. It seems to be the removal of a bunch of useful features.

binkHN 3y ago

The enshittification of everything. These are not just "changes," this is them removing functionality and replacing it with nothing.

deleted 3y ago

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napoleoncomplex 3y ago

A lot of the changes just don't make any sense? Some of the features removed: - Using your voice to send an email, video or audio message. You can still make calls and send text messages - Rescheduling an event in Google Calendar with your voice. You can still schedule a new event. - Asking to take certain actions by voice, such as send a payment, make a reservation, or post to social media. You can still ask Assistant to open your installed apps. - Asking to meditate with Calm. You can still ask for meditation options with media providers such as YouTube. All of these seem to fall under the umbrella of "features that actually make the assistant an assistant"/connecting the assistant to other apps, which I imagine is exactly the opposite of where the Assistant trend is going, especially with LLMs. Just speaking to a device about which action you want to take and not needing to think which app you need to open and navigate feels like the UX of the future, whatever this is seems like the opposite.

jpcfl 3y ago
My guess is that a lot of these features are hard-coded, and they are deprecating them in order to replace them with a more generic LLM-based assistant.
- talleyrand 3y ago
  I really hope that this is the case.
- aquova 3y ago
  And despite how bullish everyone seems to be on LLMs, I suspect we'll see those very same LLM features get ripped out within 5 years or so.
- tlogan 3y ago
  Perhaps, but it seems like a strange approach. I would assume they would retain these features and then gradually replace each one with an LLM-based approach.
- alejo 3y ago
  If this was the case, wouldn’t had been better to axe these features once they were ready to roll out the new LLM-based functionality?

photon_collider 3y ago

Here’s the list of changes: https://support.google.com/assistant/answer/13971691 https://support.google.com/assistant/answer/13971691

Metacelsus 3y ago

Whenever there's a vague press release about "changes we're making", it's bound to be changes for the worse.

Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
They should call it the "Enshittification Log"
- brnt 3y ago
  And have Patrick Stewart read out loud.
kevstev 3y ago
True. Ten or more like 15 years ago I would have been excited about this title from Google. Now I am just like "oh great what am I losing now?!" Its a shame, its been a LONG time since Google surprised and delighted me like they did many times during the 00s.
wvenable 3y ago
I laughed when I saw the headline, saw it was Google, and then the article is just a list of everything they are removing. It's almost parody.

smileysteve 3y ago

Defaulting to search or YouTube feels like a money / metrics grab. No longer displaying commute time to work, but you can check it on maps? So, they're removing the assistant part into a search box.

nostrademons 3y ago
I suspect it's org politics - but yes, in search of money and metrics. Assistant alienated a lot of other departments from 2016-2020 with their rapid rise and rapid growth in headcount (and ability to push integrations through whether they were a good idea or not). Then they failed to make significant money, right into an economic environment where making money was prioritized much more highly than speculative researchey new markets. These changes are them trying to make themselves indispensable to other PA's metrics, so that when budgets are set, they can argue "You can't cut Assistant, look at the drop in searches & YouTube views that would result in." Same reason why they were hit harder in the layoffs than other more profitable products.

trey-jones 3y ago

Sometimes I use voice for search. My primary use-case is creating reminders. For this I use (of course), the microphone in the search bar. I guess I'll have to find the next best way. Maybe it will end up being better.

twisteriffic 3y ago
Unless things have changed recently, you can't even do that if you use a workspace account. No explanation of why, it just silently fails. I'm down to three gestures with assistant: - play white noise. 50% success rate. Half the time it plays white stripes or some random death metal, which is great when my kids are trying to sleep. - "ok google, stop". This works reasonably reliably. - "I wasn't talking to you". For the 3-6 times per day when it activates for seemingly no reason and where no activation logs are ever created. If I can find a decent internet-attached photo frame to replace it I'm out.

TrueDuality 3y ago

I was really hoping something had forced Google to allow the full disabling of the assistant. I really don't find it useful and accidentally trigger it more often than I care to admit. Make it truly useful or get out of my way.

bboygravity 3y ago

I know what would be a killer feature: the ability to turn it completely off and delete it and never have to see it ever again.

firtoz 3y ago
Anything else that allows me to set alarms and timers without having to touch my phone?
- avsteele 3y ago
  "ok google" : "Set timer for x minutes" works for alarm, etc...
- nix0n 3y ago
  I've been using a 1980s-style digital watch for this. It's good enough for cooking, which is the only time I care about not touching my phone.
- HarHarVeryFunny 3y ago
  "Hey Siri, set 10 minute timer". But I suppose you meant for Android ?
  - firtoz 3y ago
    Android indeed, or anything that's not Apple nor Amazon nor some other "all your data are belong to us". I know there are some cool DIY hacker projects out there, maybe I should really get my hands dirty tbh? In that case, does anyone know any good links to things they tried recently? Especially with Whisper.cpp and so on it may not be TOO hard on a Raspberry Pi... right?
    - draugadrotten 3y ago
      Try Home Assistant and an esp32 with a mic array. https://www.home-assistant.io/voice_control/ https://www.home-assistant.io/voice_control/

eterm 3y ago

Wow that's a big list of surprisingly useful features being ripped out. I'd already noticed my new phone (pixel 8, I fucking hate it) had trouble setting a simple timer with a voice command ( last time I tried it gave me a shitty youtube video result of a 10 minute timer!?!), but this list of removed features goes further, removing other basic functionality from voice assistance. If all a voice assistant can do is google my "command" and read me the results, that's a terrible experience. The whole selling point (to me) is the ability to do something magic with what I'm asking.

singularity2001 3y ago
Google has to cater to its reputation of biggest destructor of products
Bartkusa 3y ago
> Managing a stopwatch on Smart Displays and Speakers. You can still set timers and alarms. How much does this cost to maintain? A stopwatch? They’re axing a STOPWATCH?! This is embarrassing.
- JoshTriplett 3y ago
  Taking a guess, based on experiences with using Google Assistant extensively: What do you do if you have statistics saying that, say, a feature is used by a small fraction of users, and 40% of the activations of the feature were in fact not what the user wants, and instead were misunderstandings of requests for something else? Ambiguity is a massive problem.
  - ketralnis 3y ago
    Be better and misunderstand less often?
    - JoshTriplett 3y ago
      Human syntax sometimes has inherent ambiguities.

peeters 3y ago

Another step in Android's steady progression of become less and less useful hands-free. It's incredible to me that my experience with my Nexus One in 2010 was better than it is today with a Pixel 7. The fact that it arbitrarily decides to not recognize some contacts on some days. The fact that it can't handle me spelling out a street name when it insists on replacing the street name that I'm saying with something completely different. The fact that YouTube Music would always play "some driving music" that it chooses over my playlist literally called "Driving Music", when I would say "Play my Driving Music Playlist on YouTube Music". And now the assistant is getting even less personalized, which means it will care even less about what you're literally saying, and just send you into a swamp of generic assumptions. Assistants were SO much more usable when they would require strict trigger language, and interpret it literally and formulaically. Yes you would have to learn its language, but once you did, you could actually accomplish what you wanted to accomplish, unlike today.

avtolik 3y ago
Yep. It is a pretty useless device if you cannot hold it in your hand and unlock it. So for example, when I ride my bike I can pause the music or receive a call and not much else.
- peeters 3y ago
  I wonder how many road deaths their declining hands-free quality has contributed to? I'd wager the number has more than two digits. It's one thing to never have supported something hands-free, but when something that you used to be able to regularly do hands-free all of a sudden doesn't work, drivers are bound to get frustrated and use the device hand-held.
Workaccount2 3y ago
Google needs to toss Sundar and get a competent CEO who can forcefully smash the org back into line. Google has turned into these little micro clusters of ideologies and functional philosophies, leading to a horrifically fragmented mess of google branded products. All which come loaded now with end-of-life anxiety as google just farts out products that seem to dissipate just as fast. The fact that most google apps function better on iOS than Pixel phones should be enough to get any sane board to take action. This is without even mentioning the disaster that search has become, or completely dropping the ball on LLMs.

pragmaticpro 3y ago

> Asking to take certain actions by voice, such as send a payment, make a reservation, or post to social media. You can still ask Assistant to open your installed apps. This seems to imply that apps which feature 'app actions' would no longer work properly and will need to be opened via assistant separately... Sounds like a major regression for those scenarios with needing to issue a separate command to open an app.

jacooper 3y ago

TBH all Classic voixe assistants are terrible, they should be replaced with any of the mainstream LLM models we have.

HarHarVeryFunny 3y ago
To me the problem isn't lack of language understanding - it's more lack of integration with useful actions, although LLM support would certainly help with feature discovery and flexible invocation of actions. Presumably Google Assistant is on it's way to being replaced by ChatGPT with plugins, although these would need access to phone APIs to do local stuff.
- jacooper 3y ago
  True, but the assistant needs to be actually good to do such things, it isn't good enough now.

petee 3y ago

It says you can only add new events now and not reschedule...does that mean when Assistant gets the info wrong for the event I'll have to go in and manually change it? It screws up constantly, so it sounds like a headache

asdajksah2123 3y ago

I'm quite torn on this (to be fair, I rarely use voice commands at all...I've found it's usually more effort to fix things when it gets it wrong than the cumulative sum of all the times it may save me any time whatsoever). 1. I can see how this is absolutely frustrating for someone who uses one of these commands regularly. 2. At the same time, one of the issues with voice commands relative to say keyboard input is the lack of delineation. If I hit Ctrl + Enter on my keyboard, there's no way for the computer to interpret that any differently. However, that's not the case with voice commands. It needs to keep determining (a) what I said, (b) whether it's a command or just voice, (c) whether it's a command it's supposed to execute and that's before it even figures out waht to execute. But the problem is that as the number of voice commands increases, the number of false "this is a command and not just voice" triggers will increase. There's probably a genuine benefit for Google's users in the universe of commands being very small as long as the command that's removed is not one they use. I've noticed several of the options are "you can use a custom routine to do this instead". Maybe Google should have included the custom routine and made it togglable.

w0m 3y ago

and this sucks.

afavour 3y ago

To me this highlights the core failure with all these voice-driven UIs: you have absolutely no idea what is possible and what isn't. Discoverability is zero, which makes big changes like this even more disruptive. I've already decided that I'm done with Google's smart assistant stuff in any case. I have a Google Home with a screen in my kitchen and the most-used feature (aside from just existing as a photo frame) was an integration with a really useful shopping list app called AnyList. It certainly wasn't complex, we'd say "Hey Google, add <x> to the shopping list" and it would do it. But it was very useful: I'd have something in my hands I just pulled from the fridge (e.g. milk) and be able to add it to the list without interrupting what I'm doing. If it had to wait until I was done for me to pull out my phone I'd inevitably forget. Then one day Google decided to disable that integration. Now the only shopping list you can add to is one Google provides (which naturally has way fewer features than AnyList). They've never provided even the remotest defense for why they've removed it, it's very obviously to lock us into the Google ecosystem. So our Google Home is now a glorified photo frame that plays music from time to time (and even then prioritizes cover versions and YouTube videos over actual songs, presumably because $$$)

esafak 3y ago
It's not just voice, but conversational interfaces in general that have this discoverability problem. That means chatGPT. I'm glad people are discovering it, if you excuse the pun. CUIs are not a panacea, not a replacement for conventional UIs.
- gr__or 3y ago
  I think there's a line worth drawing here: Pre-LLM voice interfaces required you to guess the command(s) the designer of the thinking were having in mind for the action you want to perform. With LLMs you can be 10ft into human-level vaguery and metaphorism and your intent might still survive. So the difference wrt discovery is that you only have to gesture at what you wanna do and, if a matching action exists, there is a chance it will be understood. I'd wager we'll see a renaissance of voice assistants with LLMs, especially once the good-enough ones can run on device.

thrillgore 3y ago

Typical Google

htrp 3y ago

List of items being removed... instead of being nested under the announcement * Playing and controlling audiobooks on Google Play Books with your voice. You can still cast audiobooks from your mobile device. * Setting or using media alarms, music alarms, or radio alarms on Google Assistant enabled devices. You can create a custom Routine that has similar behavior or use a standard alarm. * Accessing or managing your cookbook, transfering recipes from device to device, playing an instructional recipe video, or showing step-by-step recipes. You can use Google Assistant to search for recipes across the web and YouTube. * Managing a stopwatch on Smart Displays and Speakers. You can still set timers and alarms. * Using your voice to call a device or broadcast a message to your Google Family Group. You can still broadcast to devices in your home. * Using your voice to send an email, video or audio message. You can still make calls and send text messages. * Rescheduling an event in Google Calendar with your voice. You can still schedule a new event. * Using App Launcher in Google Assistant driving mode on Google Maps to read and send messages, make calls, and control media. You can still use voice control on Google Maps the same way. * Asking to schedule or hear previously scheduled Family Bell announcements. You can create a custom Routine that has similar behavior. * Asking to meditate with Calm. You can still ask for meditation options with media providers such as YouTube. * Voice control for activities will no longer be available on Fitbit Sense and Versa 3 devices. You'll need to use the buttons on your device to start, stop, pause, and resume activities. You can still voice control activities on Pixel Watches. * Viewing your sleep summaries will only be available on Google Smart Displays. You can still ask for sleep details by voice on third-party smart clocks. * Calls made from speakers and Smart Displays will not show up with a caller ID unless you’re using Duo. * Viewing the ambient “Commute to Work” time estimates on Smart Displays. You can still ask for commute times and get directions by voice. * Checking personal travel itineraries by voice. You can still ask for flight status. * Asking for information about your contacts. You can still make calls to your contacts. * Asking to take certain actions by voice, such as send a payment, make a reservation, or post to social media. You can still ask Assistant to open your installed apps.

nickcw 3y ago

I read the title of this and thought - yes - at last - Google are going to be integrating LLM capabilities with Google Assistant to make it really really useful instead of occasionally useful with a side helping of frustration at how little it understands. Instead this seems to be a list of useful features that are being taken away! I'm disappointed. Google employ some of the best AI/ML engineers in the world and they are making assistant worse rather than making it a showcase for what LLMs can do.

crimsoneer 3y ago
Agreed, this is so mystifying. Google Assistant is such an obvious use case.
ygjb 3y ago
The problem is that the current crop of google assistant devices (excluding current and upcoming gen cell phones) are woefully underpowered for local models, meaning that supporting the existing install base will be expensive. I expect that a new assistant like product (Google Bard Home or something) will be announced and existing Assistant/Home devices will be deprecated.
operatingthetan 3y ago
https://blog.google/products/assistant/google-assistant-bard-generative-ai/ https://blog.google/products/assistant/google-assistant-bard... Was announced in October, but haven't seen anything about it since.

kotaKat 3y ago

Sounds like Google's making a bunch of anti-competitive moves by stripping out loads of third party support from Assistant. Makes you think.

yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago

So perhaps it's a good day to call for contributors to add more actions to https://github.com/Stypox/dicio-android https://github.com/Stypox/dicio-android ? If Google wants to remove features, they can be replaced by something that doesn't have that problem.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

ryandvm 3y ago

Glad they're making changes because it couldn't possibly be worse. It is one of the few products I use daily that gets noticeably worse over time. Shopping lists, calendars, reminders, timers, etc use to work pretty well, but now they're absolute trash. There's a running joke in our house that one of us will ask the Google Home speaker something, it responds with either "I don't know", "I can't do that", or some bizarre non-sequitur and then we say, "just ask ChatGPT".

esafak 3y ago
On a good day, when it asks me for feedback I tell it to fire the person in charge. On less charitable days I throw in the rest of the team.
- password4321 3y ago
  From what I read it sounds like your plan is working!

kleiba 3y ago

I went into AI almost 30 years ago because I wanted to be part of building a science-fiction future where you could talk to your device just like in the movies. Now that we're almost there, I wouldn't touch a cloud-based speech interface with a ten foot pole -- had I foreseen that my sci-fi future included giving all my private information (like, say, what my voice sounds like) to a face-less billion dollar global corporation, I would have saved my time.

Terr_ 3y ago
I want to see a personal AI revolution to echo the Personal Computer revolution. Tools that people own-- capital, almost--that work for individual own best-interests.
- toyg 3y ago
  It's never going to happen. The Personal Computer revolution was made possible by economies of scale in industrial manufacturing of relatively simple components. Companies made money by selling widgets to as many people as possible. By definition, AI is only made possible by advances in massive computation capacity, which is easier to achieve and improve with centralized models. This is always going to be the realm of Big Money. In a way, AI epitomizes the shift from XX-century economics, based on manufacturing, to a XXI-century version based on extracting rent from networked digital subjects.
  - Terr_ 3y ago
    > By definition, AI is only made possible by advances in massive computation capacity By what? In the words of Inigo Montoya: "The way you use that word... I do not think it means what you think it means." Sure, we're kinda-brute-forcing things now, but that's no physical law (nor dictionary definition) declaring that digital assistants will be just captive pen-pal lamp-genies of Big Companies inside their Big Computer Rooms forever. Perhaps someday you'll be able to grab an off-the-shelf AI core, "flash" its mutable-circuits/firmware/weights with a starting state, and pop it into an appropriate chassis for the task.

leviathant 3y ago

I think because I have Google Fi, I kept getting Google Home products. We've got a couple of the little speakers, and a couple of the little Nest hubs. I bought a pair of Nest Home Max speakers when they were blowing them out, because people said they sounded good - they do! All this is to say I'm fairly late to the voice assistant party. At some point my wife and I decided to give it a good try. Read up on best practices. Figured it'd been something that had been in market a good long time, maybe by now the kinks were worked out. The search results were hit or miss. It was not clear where tasks were being saved to. So for the last few years, here are the voice commands we've used: ok google, what's the weather today ok google, play white noise ok google, stop ...and every now and then, we ask it to search for info on a topic and it fails comically. I'm not surprised to see a big shift here. Oooh. On my Pixel, I do use "OK Google, Turn off the flashlight" - that IS helpful.

twisteriffic 3y ago
What's your success rate on white noise? I'm down in the 50s with no earthly idea of why. I get white stripes and random death metal with great regularity.

nemothekid 3y ago

You'd think with all the noise about how awful Siri is you would see Google crushing voice integrations as a top 3 advantage. Now I'm left wondering if the reason Apple has abandoned Siri and Homepod is because they are fundamentally flawed products.

wavemode 3y ago

Assistant has lived just a little too long. Google's hands are starting to enclose around its neck.

kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
Google Concierge is waiting for it's day in the sun.

shooker435 3y ago

This is what makes me skeptical of ever buying a Volvo or other car with Google Assistant built in.

ChilledTonic 3y ago

I was watching a friend use Siri the other day (I've never used an iPhone) and I was blown away by how much it could accomplish in comparison to Google Assistant. He said he used Siri as the default way of interfacing with his phone, which I found interesting. Reading this list of removals, especially the removal of CALLER ID, on video calls no less, an insane choice - how much could that possibily cost to maintain? - I'm honestly wondering if they're actively trying to drive people into Apple's ecosystem. Nevertheless I'll never buy a Google product as long as I live. How can I trust them not to completely mothball every useful feature I bought it for?

dvngnt_ 3y ago
that's strange. I remember watching mkbhd assistant comparison and I thought google had the more capable one
- reportingsjr 3y ago
  Yeah, it's no competition. Siri is terrible in comparison to google assistant. Not sure what OP is on about.
  - pound 3y ago
    Of all 3, I'd say Alexa is the most practical for using at home, google one is kinda the smartest one but also is the most frustrating one - what worked yesterday will not work today or will work occasionally (exact same prompt's wording). Siri will not always respond but overall works fine within its somewhat limited scope, as compared to others (like number of integrations supported), but then again - ecosystem.. My biggest issue with Siri is intercom: at home we mostly speak other language than english, and when using intercom Siri often tries to parse what's being recorded, instead of just recording audio sample and send it verbatim. Something like: Me - Hey Siri, Intercom Siri - intercom chime (not 'Aha?' of responding to just Hey Siri) Me - *bjlkabdgkjhqwruo;fghnasd.mkfnlkjashfjkasdngjkasbdg* (doesn't matter, different language) Siri (thinking she recognized some word) - Here are the results for what you asked..
- 3y ago

tlogan 3y ago

I believe Google is heading in the wrong direction with their current approach. In my opinion, integrating LLMs and add function calling would be a significant improvement. This integration would enable the assistant to perform more complex and integrated tasks, and facilitate more meaningful conversations. Especially in scenarios where the user’s request isn’t clear or it’s uncertain which application to invoke and how, this advanced interaction capability could be incredibly beneficial.

notatoad 3y ago
> In my opinion, integrating LLMs and add function calling would be a significant improvement i'm sure this is where they're headed. but what announcement reads as to me is some clever PM at google realized they don't want to announce a new LLM update to the assistant and have to include all the functionality it loses in that same announcment. so they're taking the functionality away now, and in six months they can announce a new assistant that has feature parity with the "old one"

varelse 3y ago

[dead]

bilalq 3y ago

For all the hype "AI" gets these days, it's amazing how much things have regressed. My Android phone used to remember where I parked and show it on my Google Now feed and a push notification as I headed out, all without ever asking it to do anything. The travel.google.com site used to show my itineraries without ever adding them there. Hotels, flights, car rentals, and more would be aggregated. Doesn't do that anymore. You used to just be able to search for "my flights" on Google and it'd tell you about you about your upcoming flights.

leros 3y ago
The old Google Now feed was amazing. Showed me where my car is parked. Told me when to leave to arrive places in time. Pulled up my flight details automatically. Now it's just a bunch of click bait articles.
- verelo 3y ago
  It’s almost like google intentionally kills good projects. I still miss Inbox more than anything. The snooze feature on an email was so amazing.
  - fragmede 3y ago
    I miss Inbox too, but Gmail now has snooze functionality built in.
    - throw_nbvc1234 3y ago
      I had to stop using gmail/snooze on my ipad because the snoozes wouldn't be synced with my phone. Seems like such a poor implementation vs inbox.
      - verelo 3y ago
        yeah thats the struggle i had too. Found I'd snooze on my phone but then they're in my desktop.

iteratethis 3y ago

"We're doing cost cuts and layoffs and here's why this is great for you".

beembeem 3y ago
Yep. So much double-speak and lying through the teeth here. The audacity to mention "we're investing in assistant" in an announcement about how they are decidedly de-investing is rich.

resolutebat 3y ago

I've had a Google Home for close to ten years and I don't think I've ever used a single one of these features. Then again, 99% of my Assistant use is kitchen timers and Spotify, and I systematically disable it on my phones. My kids are still salty about Song Quiz going away last year though.

summerlight 3y ago

https://www.semafor.com/article/01/10/2024/google-lays-off-hundreds-working-on-its-voice-activated-assistant https://www.semafor.com/article/01/10/2024/google-lays-off-h... Note that there has been a significant layoff days ago in the assistant team to "improve Google Assistant as it explores integrating newer artificial intelligence technology into its products". Probably they're trying to replace the backend for the assistant with some LMM-based models and see those functionalities are the blockers? Of course, this could be (and should be IMO) done in more gradual migrations rather than this sudden deprecation, but who knows what those execs have in their mind.

0xcafefood 3y ago
> who knows what those execs have in their mind. If I understand Google culture correctly, "promo" is the answer.

_dain_ 3y ago

Reading this thread is kinda bizarre to me. Do people actually ... talk to their phones? Like for real, not just in cringeworthy scripted adverts? I've never used any of these voice assistant things and nor does anyone I know. It always seemed like a huge gimmick to me. Am I just in a bubble?

post_break 3y ago
You are in a bubble. And these changes also apply to Google Home devices which are in millions of homes.
croisillon 3y ago
s.o. and i both own iphones but never talk to siri. recently we spent a week at an airbnb with an alexa thing so we used it for music and couple more stuff, it was sometimes good, other times so bad it was funny anyway, we came back home and still don't use siri
jurassicfoxy 3y ago
I definitely exist in a bubble, but it's especially useful while driving. Or for searches "Hey Siri, what is the capital of Zambia?" is faster than typing it, and you don't even need to reach for your phone. (Of course Siri is awful and can barely do basic things.) We use it quite a lot.
Noumenon72 3y ago
It's just faster to say "OK Google, navigate to work" than pulling out a keyboard and opening apps. Even though for some reason I still can't time when Google is going to start listening after all these years, and have to repeat myself a lot. I think it was fine-tuned for American voices at first and got worse when expanded worldwide.
- _dain_ 3y ago
  why don't you know the way to work?
  - deleted 3y ago

NoboruWataya 3y ago

Amazing that this post about how they are intent on delivering the "best possible user experience" just announces a ton of features they're dropping and literally not one feature they are adding. Not that it matters to me because having bought an Amazon Echo a few years back I find these things mostly useless. It basically just does the most basic things a phone does (music, weather, news headlines), but with added friction when it misinterprets you. They are a clear example of something we rush to buy because they are "the future" before realising that the future is just the present but more tedious and with more ads.

drdaeman 3y ago
That's modern large corporate PR for you - they can stop any kind of service and remove any features and the PR department will release that happy post parading it as a giant leap forward. What's bad is that people are so used to it nobody barely rises an eyebrow.

nineteen999 3y ago

How about you remove the popup prompt to turn on Google Assistant EVERY TIME I connect my Bluetooth earphones? It's turned off for a reason.

aristus 3y ago

Something that's kinda funny but baffling to me is the unspoken assumption that a UI with voice input should also default to voice output. That's not how two humans work on command / response tasks, say, hanging pictures. You say, "a finger to the left and up" and I move the picture. Silent UI feedback is a curiously unplumbed idea. Or another one: if you sit at a restaurant and ask the menu, would you rather they tediously recite it? Or hand you a paper menu while maybe giving a couple tips like "the fish pasta is awesome today"?

jdthedisciple 3y ago
How do you get feedback then? Supposedly, when you are voice commanding, you do so because you are unable to look at the device and visually confirm that the correct action is being undertaken.

Yhippa 3y ago

> Viewing the ambient “Commute to Work” time estimates on Smart Displays. You can still ask for commute times and get directions by voice. They're going to take this little piece of convenience for me that I always use. Sad :-(

stronglikedan 3y ago

Wow, Bixby will finally be more useful than GA! Good job, Google! Bye!

no_streams 3y ago

Have any open-source voice assistants reached a half-usable state?

vzaliva 3y ago

"Using your voice to send an email" - how's that not useful?! E.g. running late for a meeting and send a quick email from your car.

BeetleB 3y ago

I bought Google Home/speakers in 2018 and still use them. Since I bought them, there have been almost 0 improvements that I've seen. A lot of potential gone to waste. That they're sunsetting features is not a surprise. I don't know if Alexa is better, but I always tell my friends to buy those instead of Google Homes.

dmonitor 3y ago
it’s at least a decent wifi speaker for casting spotify or whatever
- BeetleB 3y ago
  That it has some good qualities is why I still haven't put them in the trash. My point is they've let it rot all these years. And the potential for cool applications is huge.

gerash 3y ago

When Amazon echo came out, all the flaws of voice assistant were visible and it looked like a glorified kitchen timer but it's surprising how little they improved over the years. Nonetheless Google executives rushed to copy Alexa. At the same time the same executives did not incorporate LLMs into the Assistant when Google invented the tech. These layoffs should've fired all those dead-weight executives and the CEO for good measure yet we see the rank and file losing their job

jinushaun 3y ago
That’s why I find the big tech pivot to AI so frustrating. There’s more to AI than LLM and Google and others had all the time in the world to make that. It took someone like OpenAI to show them the error of their ways. Reminds me of legacy mobile phone makers when the iPhone launched.

calamari4065 3y ago

Modern Google is so boringly, predictably shitty.

cheriot 3y ago

The algorithm hype cycle keeps on turning. Voice assistants, self driving cars, and now LLMs. Each one represents an advancement, but nothing to justify the hopes and dreams people expect them to solve any minute now. Every major company has been working on an AI assistant for the past year. Have any of them launched something useful?

dcchambers 3y ago

Actually bummed about this...I use Google assistant triggered via the Google search bar mic button on my phone all the time to manage smart home things.

kurts_mustache 3y ago

It's frustrating to see these updates that feel like a step back rather than an improvement. Why remove useful features and irritate your users? Guess this lets Google lay off more workers who were working on these.

Amigo5862 3y ago

Not that I use voice assistants very regularly, but I decided they've become completely useless after Christmas when I was driving back home and had this (almost-verbatim) exchange with my Android around 11am: Hey Google, remind me when I'm home to ... "I can't remind you at a place" - pretty sure it used to be able to??? Hey Google, remind me tomorrow to ... "Ok, what time do you want me to remind you tomorrow?" Noon "Ok, I'll remind you at noon today" ???????????????????????????

wly_cdgr 3y ago

Let me guess, you're making it even more crap than it already is It's like when you get the "we're updating our privacy policy" email

steelframe 3y ago

I once interviewed someone working in the Google Assistant org. His job was to build technology that would detect "unusual sounds" that the microphone picks up while awaiting a "Hey Google" prompt. I went home from that interview and threw my Google Home device in the trash.

geor9e 3y ago
Alexa does that too. It's the same offline wake sound model that processes Alexa and Hey Google. There's a list you can assign to do stuff (send you a notification or turn on a light or whatever) dog barking, baby crying, snoring, glass shattering, smoke alarm beeping, co2 alarm beeping, appliance beeping, running water
Rebelgecko 3y ago
Are you talking about the (opt in) accessibility feature where you can get visual notifications when your doorbell rings and things like that?
- steelframe 3y ago
  Based on what I learned in that interview, there are more classifications of sounds that the product detects. Only a subset of those classifications are surfaced to the customer as part of the product.

londons_explore 3y ago

Why are all these assistants a bunch of rigid regexes and canned responses rather than just a frontend to a language model that can do/say anything? It feels like 2010's tech that couldn't keep up.

Kwpolska 3y ago

Some of those removed features are quite bizarre. > Managing a stopwatch on Smart Displays and Speakers. You can still set timers and alarms. You already have a clock app, probably based on the standard Android one, and how many commands are for stopwatches? > Using your voice to send an email, video or audio message. You can still make calls and send text messages. What’s the big difference between sending a text message to a phone number via the messaging app, and sending an email via the Gmail app? It’s probably a single API call with a few parameters. > Rescheduling an event in Google Calendar with your voice. You can still schedule a new event. > Calls made from speakers and Smart Displays will not show up with a caller ID unless you’re using Duo.

albert_e 3y ago

And here I was a few months ago, looking at the rise of Large Language Models and ... expecting a resurgence of all these natural language assistants. I was expecting to see the effectiveness of these assistants go through a step change for the better, and use cases exploding. Expected the established players like Google and Amazon being able to finally justify building so many of them and selling them cheap with and uncertain pay-off all these years. Alas!

jasonvorhe 3y ago

I completely disabled Google Assistant on my Pixel 7 and I've ripped out all Google Home hardware and I haven't missed any of it for a minute.

rabbits_2002 3y ago

Google is a horrible company